Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Activity, Change, Progress

Tina Robertson

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Learning American history through the life of Wyatt Earp, an American lawman is another fun way to learn American history. Also, look at Free American History Lapbook The Old West Through the Life of Wyatt Earp.

History comes alive when you focus on the dramatic life of an American figure or exciting event.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When I need to cover American history, the boys always get to decide the person or event.

Whether they choose to cover the FBI in high school or the gunfight at the OK Corral, I can always make the time period come alive.

One way I have learned to round out a unit study and make it more meaningful is to study the world at the time the person was living or the event was happening.

American History through the Eyes of an American Lawman

By steering Tiny to events or persons in a time period we need to focus on, it’s a win-win. 

He gets to choose a person or event that piqued his curiosity and the teacher in me is satisfied because I know he is exposed to a time period we need to cover.

Too, beginnings are important in unit studies. 

Remember to make the beginning of your unit study lively. 

I added a few details that will lead us into hands-on activity first and then reading will come second.

Look at these few details.

  • Wyatt Earp was born in 1848 and died in 1929;
  • Tombstone is close to the Mexican border in Arizona;
  • Wyatt Earp wanted to join the American Civil War but his dad wouldn’t let him; and
  • Wyatt Earp made a name for himself in postwar Kansas as a lawman.

What a great time period to focus on for modern American history.

Right away, I know that the American Civil War happened during his life time so I could tie in the Civil War if we hadn’t studied it before.

However, because we have covered the American Civil War twice and a did a lapbook both times, I think we are going to head another direction by getting the flavor of the world at that time.

Being the youngest child, Tiny was too young for some of the hands-on activities we did during the time period of the late 1800s when we studied the Civil War twice.

Another thing about Tiny though is that he is different from my other two sons because he doesn’t care the age of many hands-on activities. 

The kid just loves all of it.  If it’s a hands-on activity he is in.

Hands-On History

That combination actually makes for a great kid to homeschool because he just loves activities.

So today, we had a pioneer day. 

We spent the whole morning doing fun and easy hands-on activities that families would have done during the time Wyatt Earp lived.

Hardtack – Staple of the American Civil War

Because the Civil War was going on when Earp was a boy, we started off making hardtack, which was eaten during the Civil War.

You probably have heard of the flat biscuit like staple of the Civil War.

Two ingredients make it easy to make.

  • 1 cup of water
  • 2 cups of flour
Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities
Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

After mixing the flour and water, Tiny turned it out onto the counter.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities
Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

Yes, he used a plastic bottle to flatten the dough. (A rolling pin would be nice to use but since we are still building up our kitchen supplies here in Ecuador, a clean plastic bottle worked just fine.) 

You want it about a 1/4 inch or thin as we learned.  Thin is better.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities
Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

He used a fork to poke holes in it. 

We did read somewhere that the original hardback had 13 holes in it to represent the 13 original colonies.

Then you know I told you we don’t have an oven, but we do have a toaster over.

So we baked the hardtack for about 30 minutes on 400 degrees in a glass pyrex container.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

It actually came out pretty good tasting when it was warm. We were surprised.

Of course I know they can probably break your teeth if you wait to try one longer, but it was a fun activity to learn about what could be made to eat with just a few ingredients.

Pioneer Cooking – Make Your Own Butter

Then we had to have some fresh butter on those warm hardtack crackers.  So we started that activity too.

Again, I like this activity to explore the times of the pioneers because these ingredients I keep on hand here at the house.

The two ingredients are:

  • heavy cream
  • salt (if you choose too)

You also need a glass jar, which we had too.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities
Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

I filled the jar about half-way up with the cream and let it sit at room temperature while we started the hardtack.

The hardest part to this project is the shaking. After filling the jar, shake….Make butter 3 Make butter 4

and shake it some more ……. and shake it some more all over the house.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities
Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

We took turns shaking the jar for about 45 minutes before we saw results. 

You can see it in the picture where the butter started separating from the soured milk.

So we poured out the soured milk and added tap water in the jar to rinse the butter. We shook some more to rinse it and poured off the water.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

Tiny added some salt and taaaa – daaa, we had some sweet butter.

Here is our warm hardtack and sweet butter.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Hands-on Activities

And oh yes, it was delicious and a fun way to get the flavor (pun intended, corny, I know) of the time period that Wyatt Earp lived in.

Those aren’t the only activities we did though.  I’ll share our next easy hands-on activity we did, the history magazine we will be using for this unit study and the lapbook printables will be coming soon.

Look at a few of these website that have some great ideas for more pioneer living activities.

  • Include the littles with this unit for middle school by making a hand print horse, cow collage, animal cracker ranch scene or yarn doll to name a few from Kids Activities.
  • Make some taffy if you have some middle school kids.
  • Make hand dipped candles if you have middle school kids.
  • A Book in Time is chock full of ideas for each time period. Depending on the age of your child, he can make a covered wagon, log cabin or learn about cotton, which was a huge commodity during this time period.

Check out these resources for the American West and Wyatt Earp

HOW TO GET THE FREE WYATT EARP LAPBOOK, NOTEBOOKING PAGES & BOARD GAME

Update: The lapbook is now complete. Download all the freebies below.

  • Art cards by Frederic Remington about Wyatt Earp
  • Cover pages for the outside of notebooking pages 1800s and 1900s. Look here how to fold ordinary worksheets to interactive minibooks.
  • 8 Features of the SW United States
  • The 4 Southwestern states
  • American History during the Life of Wyatt Earp 1800s notebooking page
  • American History during the Life of Wyatt Earp 1900s notebooking pages
  • Who was Wyatt Earp
  • Who were the Cowboys
  • Who Was Doc Holliday
  • Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Tombstone, Arizona – About Tombstone – Ed Schieffelin
  • Printable Game with Game Pieces – The Most Famous Shoot Out – Gunfight at O.K. Corral

 1) Sign up on my list.

2) Grab the freebie now.

3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

Homeschooling a Left-Brain Child a/k/a Socially Awkward and a Bit Nerdy

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Homeschooling a left-brain child has been a joy, but a bit of an adventure.

For example, right when the minister said we are assembled together in this funeral home for this sad moment of the passing of our dear sister, my left-brain child burst out in laughter.

Then, right before Kindermusik classes started, he asked the homeschool mom sitting beside me if she ever changed her baby’s diaper because he sure stinks.

Besides being moments where I wish I could crawl under the seat, I realized early on that I was homeschooling a child with a quirky personality.

Back when I started homeschooling, I didn’t fully appreciate the power of being informed about learning styles or personalities.

Homeschooling a Left-Brain Child a/k/a Socially Awkward and a Bit Nerdy

What I didn’t know immediately was that I was homeschooling a left brain child.

What I did know was that he had some of these traits:

  1. He was perfectly content to be alone and was truly happy;
  2. He preferred to read an encyclopedia for knowledge instead of a fiction book;
  3. He read early and was advanced for his age and it was hard to tell others how advanced he was;
  4. He had a hard time expressing his feelings in a gracious manner and he felt that unless he spoke his mind in a direct way that he was not being sincere;

And he had these 5 traits as well.

  1. He thrived with details and did not like being rushed;
  2. Routine was a comfort to him and he needed to be “warned” if I changed our routine suddenly;
  3. He didn’t like loud noises or a lot of people talking at the same time;
  4. He preferred his school area neat, cleaned up his room without me asking him and his written assignments were even neater;
  5. He was seen by others as being aloof or “different”, which really meant a bit weird.

Knowing that my son preferred adult interaction or older children over friends his own age, I knew that I would have to educate myself to help him to be well-rounded .

One thing I am glad that I did not succumb to even at the coaxing of my family was thinking that something was wrong with him.

Having family members who are more laid back about deadlines, prefer to be outside or lap up music, art and craft activities, they just knew his behavior was not normal.  Well at least to them anyway.

It was not easy, but I had to find a common ground to not change the way my son came wired. But i wanted to help him see that certain behaviors are seen as rude and uncaring.

Homeschooled Child’s Learning Personality

Do you know your child’s learning personality? Let me help you through my self-paced online course at my sister site How To Homeschool EZ. Here is what you’ll learn.

  • How to understand the way your child prefers to learn so that you can teach him in a way that he enjoys learning;
  • How to pinpoint your child’s learning personality;
  • A starting point in understanding (barring any special learning challenges or disabilities) and accepting your child’s preferred way of taking in information;
  • Understanding when the learning personality emerges; and
  • Teaching tips for each learning personality to stop the head-butting.

Socially Awkward to Socially Acceptable?

I was not only concerned about helping him to over come social difficulty but to challenge him because he had an amazing memory and vocabulary.

Look at some of these things I did to help him socially and at curriculum I used:

1. I switched to a mastery based math to align with his strengths.

First, I switched from a slower pace math program, which is good for a lot of kids, to the mastery program of Singapore Math Practice, Level 1A, Grade 2. 

This fed his love of math early and as he got older I added in a spiral math program to help with review because I just wanted to be sure I covered all learning bases. 

However, as he grew older, it was evident that Math stayed as his favorite subject and a subject he stayed advanced in. He stayed with a master program through to high school.

2. In addition, I gave up an all-in-one program.

Moreover, I gave up boxed curriculum because my son needed to move to higher level chapter books.  But not just any chapter books. I had to feed his desire to expand on his knowledge and research skills and still read living books.

I came across a series call the Whole Story with books like The Hound of the Baskervilles (Whole Story) which were literally a life saver at the time. 

Each book has generous pictures, notations, diagrams and extra information throughout the side margin.  He could both read and research within the book and it kept him off the computer when I couldn’t supervise him.

3. Keep the social circle limited to a few persons.

Next, when he was younger, I limited the number of kids he played with. 

This allowed me to intervene when he felt that a kid was being “childish” (he was). 

I was able to use a fight as a teaching moment to teach my son how to be a friend and to give in to his friend even if my son was wrong. 

Being wronged builds character and more important, I wanted my son to learn to be peaceful and to relate to the feelings of his friends. 

For the sake of precious friendship, it is okay to not have to prove your point all the time.

4. Hone in on weak subjects to reduce a perfectionist mindset.

As he got older, I realized he needed help with creativity and particularly with writing

Unlike a child that loves creative writing, he did not. No, it wasn’t because he struggled with penmanship. Quite the opposite, he could write pages and pages.

The problem was he wanted specifically what I wanted from him in terms of content and form. 

I followed what Susan Wise Bauer said about giving kids concrete examples of what to write about and models to follow. I found Classical Writing Aesop and other similar type of beautiful copywork.

And again had great success with it because it used a model for my son to follow as he learned to write.

5. In addition, give your child an outlet for strokes of creativity.

Not only was I interested in his academic development, but I wanted to foster a love for his imagination through art.

He took art lessons, but I chose a teacher that would not only give him art, but would add crafts to his day.

Determined to help foster the creative side of his mind and to deepen his love for people, I organized a homeschool co-op.

I was not going to just invite friends over to our house but I was going to be sure he had interaction on a regular basis.

These are just a few things that I could change right away.

How did my left-brain son turn out?

Not only does he love people and they love him, but I feel he has matured with a deep fellow feeling for people and a love for learning that he is feeding on until adulthood.

Focus on having your left-brain child accept himself and to be the kind of person that you want him to be and not whether other people will socially accept him.  Then, your parenting will be well worth all the effort.

Other Posts About Socialization and Tips

Homeschooling a Left-Brain Child a/k/a Socially Awkward and a Bit Nerdy

Homeschooling a Left Brain Child - aka Socially Awkward and a Bit Nerdy @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Rules for Homeschool Co-ops. Essential or Excessive?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Rules for Homeschool Co-ops. Essential or Excessive @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusWhether rules for homeschool co-ops are essential or excessive shouldn’t depend on whether you are the hard working homeschool leader or the appreciative homeschooling attendee.

Unfortunately, this can be the case when you have a structured homeschool co-op.

There are several things that can affect whether a homeschool co-op has rules that literally fill up a booklet or they have informal guidelines.

One thing that can affect rules, which are hotly debated go to the very root of parenting style.

Understanding why rules are in place always helped my family to not let it sour us about attending homeschool co-ops.

Not only do some leaders have rules in place because a tragic incident may have happened before, but when you rent a room, normally the establishment has rules in place too.

For example, one place we rented had a very busy parking lot. With cars backing up and constantly going back and forth, we had to have rules in place for the kids’ safety.

Though none of the girls serving on the board of the homeschool co-op I led were helicopter parents, we would never want any harm to come to any child.  We had to make rules, like a child could not go alone to the bathroom or wander around alone at the building.

Middle and high school kids did not have to be accompanied but you would be surprised at how many parents thought it was okay for a younger children to go accompanied because they felt their child was old enough to watch for traffic.  Maybe so or maybe not.

Too, our group was responsible for cleaning the bathrooms after the co-op. Many moms expressed their gratefulness for cleaning a bathroom where young kids were not left unattended. Enough said.

Another rule we were adamant about that would sometimes bristle the hair of new families attending our co-op is that our co-op was not a drop and run place.

We required the parents to be there for the co-op. We were not a babysitting service, the disciplining police or teen dating chaperones.

Some co-ops are very large and have parents assigned for those roles. However, because we chose to run our co-op informally and not a mini version of public school, we required parent attendance.

As the homeschool leaders we went to great lengths to treat every child like our own when they were misbehaving. Kindness and love is always the way to treat every child at the homeschool co-op.

What Keeps Your Homeschool Co-op From Getting Better?

However, when that didn’t work, mom and dad know their child best.  Discipline has to be applied in the right measure with each child and because kid’s feelings can be very tender, it is a role for the parent.

Being reasonable is also a must for every homeschool leader.  When needed we made reasonable exceptions to our rules.

For example, we had one family that was expecting another child and mom couldn’t attend one of our biggest co-ops of the year. She asked another family to be responsible for her kids who didn’t want to miss out on the fun.

We were more than glad to accommodate this family because all of their kids were so well behaved and supportive of the co-op.

The very basic rule for any of our excursions or co-ops was that children were well-behaved and showed up ready to learn.

Of course for toddlers, it was always okay for them to toddle around instead of mom having to fight and hold them all the time in her lap.

When our older children were still, whether standing or sitting, our toddlers eventually modeled the example of our older children as they grew older.

It is very normal in a lot of co-ops for toddlers to move around and we expect our older kids to learn the same way they do when they are home, which is to tolerate the little ones and learn to listen even if the toddler is a bit distracting.

It is different if a toddler is loud and crying, then our moms would address their needs.  However, toddlers can learn early on that when we come together, it is for the purpose of learning together and it starts by letting them see what is going on.

Our toddlers were not in danger of being ran over because older kids did not rough house. We simply did not have to put up with kids that couldn’t behave.

Having a few, but meaningful rules was essential in our homeschool co-op.  We always appreciated it when parents would ask the thinking behind the rules because we didn’t make them needlessly.

When the formal part of the homeschool co-op was going on, we expected the same behavior as if they were at home doing school. When the co-op was over and it was time to have fun and socialize, our group still followed the rules.

We were blessed to have a great group of moms and dads who cared about all the kids’ safety and understood that rules were in place as a protection.

How about you? Do you attend a homeschool co-op where you feel that some rules are meaningless?

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

Also, look at:
Unlocking the Homeschool Leader Within You
Look at my 5 day series of a Homeschooling Co-op Convert

A Child’s Life in the Andes & Psssst. It’s a Giveaway!

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

A Child's Life In the Andes Ebook Review @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I was given a free copy of A Child’s Life in the Andes and I was paid for my time. Compensated for my time does not mean paid off.  ALL opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. Your experience may vary. When I do accept a review it’s because I am excited to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here.

The Giveaway is now closed.

Learning about the Quechua language and culture has been one fascinating aspect about us living here in South America.

So when I was asked to use the ebook,  A Child’s Life in the Andes by Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannous (yes she is Quechua), I was delighted to use a resource that could capture some of the things we have been experiencing while living here.

Music of the Andes for Kids

Quechua is the language of the Andes. Though I knew Spanish was a dominating language here, I had no idea that the ancient language of Quechua was alive and thriving.

The Quechua language had its start in the Andes Mountain in Cuzco, Peru, which was the ancient Inca empire.

The empire was huge and ruled over many parts of present day countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and here in Ecuador.

When we moved here, I didn’t realize that many of the parades that I saw and foods we have tried have Quechua origins.

Tickled to be able to find a resource that had some quick tips about South America along with some fun hands-on history and geography, I was eager to get started using it.

Music of The Child of the Andes 1 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The ebook A Child’s Life in the Andes is a 35 page pdf that gives a glance at the people of the Andes.

Included with the ebook are 5 cancioncitas or (little songs) that we loved listening to.

Right away, with the first song Alturas (high mountains), we heard some of the traditional Andean musical instruments like zamponas (panpipes), flutes and rainsticks.

Listening to the music, from a traditional folksong to a carnival song is really the highlight of this sweet little gem.

We started off using it by listening to all the songs and read the ebook, which gives background information about each song.

The sections of the book are:

  • Where are the Andes Mountain?
  • About the songs
  • A Child’s Life
  • Animals
  • Food
  • Language
  • Coloring pages, make your your own activities and a word search puzzle.

Depending our mood, we like to skip around when using new resources and this one was no different.
Tiny wanted to do the word search puzzle next because it had a Quechua word we have heard while living here which is YAW and it means Hey.

Crossword Puzzle 1 of The Child of the Andes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

From there we moved on to including a fun and easy hands-on wind instrument called a Zamponas.
Hands-on Craft of The Child of the Andes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

With just a few household items and a few minutes, Tiny made the easy wind instrument called the zamponas.

Hands-on History

He ended up really liking that easy musical instrument and I actually got my shy guy to try out the instrument while I recorded him for a few seconds.

There are 8 coloring pages in the ebook, which are animals indigenous to South America.

Of course being from Texas and thinking that armadillos are only critters that hail from Texas (aren’t they), we were surprised to know that many are here in South America.

The body of the armadillo is used for the body of the charango, which is a stringed musical instrument here in South America that looks like a guitar.

Then we had never heard of Chapchas, which is a very unique rattle because it is made from the toenails of goat or sheep.

We really have to look for one while we are here now that our curiosity was piqued.

A Child's Life in the Andes Craft @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I think you will really love A Child’s Life in the Andes if you :

  • Want to use it like a supplement to a unit study on South America;
  • Want your children to appreciate the music of South America;
  • Have elementary age children;
  • Have children who like to learn hands-on without activities that are complicated;
  • Want a few sweeping details about life in the Andes; and
  • Want your children to be exposed to another culture without being overwhelmed with too much detail.

Guess what? Would you like to win a copy? I have a copy to give away.

Yippeeeee! Giveaway Details – Easy Rules

Begins: Tuesday May 19, 2015.  Ends: Friday May 22, 2015 @ 8:00 a.m. CST

Just comment here on my blog. The winner will be selected using random org and will be notified afterwards.  Also, because you can’t be a once a month email reader, if my winner does not respond to my email within 24 hours, I will choose another  winner.

1. Open to any resident because this is a digital download. You will not be shipped anything.

2. You have to be a blog follower.  You can comment twice.

Comment 1 x time letting me know how long you have been following (best you can remember or if you are a new follower) and comment the 2cd time with anything about the product or how you will use it.

Let’s get this party started!!

Connect with World Music for Children

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Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dariamusic/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DariaMusic?feature=watch

 Product Facts a Glance1

Company Name: World Music for Children
Website: dariamusic.com
Product Name: A Child’s Life in the Andes – Ebook
Grades: elementary
Type of Format: Download
Price: $9.99

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Signature 2015c

 

Ancient Civilization History Living Books

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have 20 ancient civilization history living books today.

When putting together your own homeschool unit studies, the first thing you want is a book that can be used as a spine or guide.  Not just any book though.

A living book makes history come alive and draws our kids back to that time period.

20 Ancient Civilization Living History Books @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Today, I am listing some of our ancient civilization living books that we have either read or that I have on my list to keep as supplements.

Middle School – Ancient Civilization Living History Books

Younger Grades – Ancient Civilization Living History Books

These are just a few of the ones that I have kept up with during the years. I know there are others. Do you have any favorites you read when studying Ancient Civilization history?

Other History Books:

Hugs and love ya,